News: After the global financial crisis comes the global humanitarian crisis?

“The budget should be balanced, the Treasury should be refilled,
public debt should be reduced, the arrogance of officialdom should be tempered and controlled, and the assistance to foreign lands should be curtailed lest Rome become bankrupt.”

Cicero, 55 BC

What is the plural of "crisis"?

It seems like 2008 is becoming the year of global crisis. First we were faced with the worldwide food crisis, swiftly followed by, what now seems to be, a collapse of major financial institutions.

But it might not stop here. As FAO, the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation, calculated the cost to deal with the current food crisis at US$30 billion per year, donors stepped up their financial support.

But that was before the current financial crisis. At this moment, the governments worldwide concentrate their financial resources in keeping their banks and financial institutions afloat:

• The Belgian, French and Luxembourg governments put in US$9 billion to keep Dexia afloat. (Full)
• Previously Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg put up US$16.1 billion to save the Fortis bank. (Full)
• Britain is working on a US$87.7 billion bank recapitalization concentrating on Barclays, HSBC and the Bank of Scotland (Full)
• Spain announced a US$40.9 billion fund to buy up bank assets and maintain liquidity (Full)
• Sweden is given Iceland's biggest bank, Kaupthing, an emergency loan worth up US$702 million) to help keep it afloat. (Full)
• Germany has thrown a US$50 billion lifeline to struggling lender Hypo Real Estate. (Full)
• Italy is about to set up a rescue fund close to US$30 billion for the banking industry. (Full)
• Canada gave a US$25 billion "backstop" for there banks. (Full)
  
• Russia pledged to boost liquidity by more than US$100bn (Full), on top of a US$5.4 billion loan to Iceland (Full)
  
• And of course we all know about the $700 billion monster US bailout (Full)
  

Apart from the fact that economists doubt the effectiveness of bailouts, we might be facing the early beginning from a real 1930's style recession. If the consumers' confidence in the banks is not restored, governments can bailout all they want, up to the level where they bankrupt themselves. Like in Iceland, where the country declared anything short of a national bankruptcy...


Any money left for international aid?

The end balance? During the food crisis, donor countries already stepped up their extra-budgetary funds to come to the rescue of aid organisations "on the occasion of the raising food prices", but now are faced with the massive cash drain bailing out their own financial institutions.

At the same time, poor countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America, which are already dealing with a surge in food and energy prices, are now finding it harder to sell goods abroad and encourage investment in their own economies. (Full)

The question now is: how much money will be left for international aid?

This week, amidst the financial turmoil, world leaders met to review the progress of the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). These are intended to reduce extreme global poverty and, improve health and education.
It was stressed that development aid needed to increase by $18 billion each year towards fulfilling the goals. At the end of the event, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon announced that an additional US$16 billion had been pledged by governments to meet the targets of the MDGs. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown in his address to the UN, went on to say that the financial crisis should not be an excuse to cut aid. (Full)


The "Humanitarian Doomsday scenario" - the first signs

Many of us, in the aid organisations, are not that optimistic as UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon:

Journalist Andrew Stroehlein, the Director of Media and Information for the International Crisis Group, states it bluntly: "I might as well just pack up and go on holiday for a few months. With the global financial crisis continuing, no one wants to hear about violent conflict and mass atrocities around the world". (Full)

UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, just wrapped up its annual refugee conference and it is concerned its needs may not be met because of the global financial crisis. (Full)

"The financial turmoil rippling across the globe will set back efforts to fight climate change, drying up capital that could help poorer countries upgrade to clean energy technology", said Yvo de Boer, the executive secretary of the U.N. climate secretariat, adding: "You can't pick an empty pocket". (Full)


Will the global financial crisis also cause a global humanitarian crisis? Time will tell, but it looks like it. As history showed, the poorest of the world always pick the shortest straw.

Update Oct 15: Aid agencies say world's poorest will be biggest victims of world's financial crisis


More posts on The Road about the food crisis, poverty, development, the UN and the economy.

Original picture courtesy Susan Manuel (WFP)

Read the full post...

News: June 20 - World Refugee Day

Tents, sacks of food and a replica of a burnt-out village hut appeared in Trafalgar Square today as a tourist hotspot became a refugee camp to highlight the plight of millions of people displaced in Darfur and elsewhere.
The display, set up to mark World Refugee Day this week, came as the U.N. refugee agency reported a record 11.4 million people were driven from their home countries last year.

In its annual report released Tuesday, the UNHCR said 11.4 million people were forced to leave their countries in 2007, compared to 9.9 million in 2006. Another 26 million were displaced within their own countries by conflict or persecution, up from 24.2 million the year before.
Nearly half the world's refugees are from war-torn Afghanistan and Iraq.

UNHCR said there are 3.1 million displaced Afghans, most in neighboring Pakistan and Iran, and 2.3 million Iraqi refugees, mostly in Syria and Jordan. Another 2.4 million Iraqis are internally displaced, an increase of 600,000 since the start of 2007.

The number of internally displaced people grew last year in Afghanistan, Sri Lanka and Yemen, as well as in the Central African Republic and Chad, where thousands of refugees have crossed the border from the Sudanese region of Darfur. (Full)

Picture courtesy Lefteris Pitarakis (AP Photo)

Read the full post...

Pero. - Tears for My Friend

In Memoriam for my friend Pero Simundza

Zadar, 18.03.1971 - West Timor, 06.09.2000

---

From: Pero.Simundza
To: Peter.Casier
Date: 23-Sept-99 15:55
Subject: Hi !

Hi Peter,

Has been a while since our dinner and drink in Tirana. Heard you got into Kosovo safe and sound.
Me, I am back at my home duty station in Mostar. I'm stuck here until I find myself another job...just another sequel to the story I told you when meeting in Tirana...
73 de Pero

---

From: Peter.Casier

To: Pero.Simundza

Date: 25/June/2000 01:58
Subject: update

Hi Pero,

Through the grapevine, I heard you were (finally) reassigned to West-Timor. Good for you!!!!
I should be passing by Timor late summer. Will let you know!
life is busy and interesting...

Peter

---

From: Pero.Simundza
To: Peter.Casier
Date: 26/June/2000 07:57:10 AM
Subject: de Pero

Hi Peter,
Long time no see.. How's life?
I just had the server installed, so now I have my good old e-mail address back, here in Atambua. You probably heard, I got the license and installed my little radio in Batugade, East Timor.

No real electricity power supply there, just the office generator after sunset until midnight. Still, it's a nice place to relax after the hard working week. Attaching some pictures.
We had a terrible flood in the south of our province, I was there for about ten days in the mud up to my neck, always wet and dirty, got the flu like everyone else (hi-hi).
About 150 people died in one night...so it wasn't all that fun as you can imagine.
I'm most likely to stay here for at least 7/8 months more...
Working hours are long (typically 12 hrs a day) but it's OK, team is good, still a lot of things to do.

When are you come over? write me sometimes, hope all OK with you,

73 de 9A4SP a.k.a. 4W6SP - Pero

---

From: Peter.Casier

To: Pero.Simundza
Date: 25/July/2000 09:04
Subject: coming over

hi Pero,

The pictures you sent surely look attractive. (except the curtains, hi)
I will fly in from Djakarta via Bali on 21st.. maybe we will meet!

Peter

---

From: Pero.Simundza
To: Peter.Casier

Date: 26/Jul/2000 07:57
Subject: re: coming over

Hello my friend,
Looking forward to seeing you again,
I should be back in Atambua from 2 weeks leave on 28 August.
Maybe I could fly with you to Dili and back on that day, because the flight lands in Atambua anyway..
73 de Pero, 9A4SP (4W6SP)

---

From: Peter.Casier
To: Pero.Simundza
Date: 26/July/2000 09:04
Subject: re:coming over

Hi Pero,
I should be traveling from Kosovo to Pakistan, then Cambodia, Laos and Jakarta. Might have to do Sri Lanka before or after Timor.
Will let you know the exact dates for the visit!
Looking forward to see you too. Has been a while !
73, Peter

---

From: Pero.Simundza

To: Peter.Casier
Date: 26/July/2000 11:04
Subject: coming over

Ooops... Your mission is not going to be all that short my friend..
Like I said, I should be back in Denpasar/Bali on the 27th, to fly to Kupang on the 28th.
i expect to be back in Atambua on 29th (tuesday) with WFP flight...

See You soon I hope,

73 de Pero 9A4SP

---

From: Peter.Casier

To: Pero.Simundza
Date: 21/August/2000 21:07
Subject: LATE reschedule:

Pero,
change of plans. This is my new itinerary.
23/8: Jakarta-Kupang
24/8: Kupang-Atambua
25/8: Atambua-Dili
30/8: leave Dili to Cambodia.

Peter

---

From: Peter.Casier
To: Friends Email distribution list.
Date: 7/Sept/2000 08:07
Subject: Goodbye to a friend.

Friends,

It is with profound sadness and anger I heard today that Pero Simundza - a UN colleague and fellow ham, was amongst the three UN staff who were killed during a militia assault on the UNHCR office in Atambua, West-Timor yesterday.

The UNHCR office in Atambua was attacked by a vicious militia mob who overrun and trashed the premises and vehicles, stabbed three UNHCR relief workers who were working in the office at that moment, to death. They then dragged the bodies onto the street and put them on fire. Pero was one of them.

Pero worked for UNHCR in Atambua as an international radio operator. He joined UNHCR years ago, in Sarajevo. Later on, he moved on mission to Albania, where I met him in June last year. We spent a most enjoyable evening together, ending with me operating from his station. He stroke me as a young, very enthusiastic, truly passionate person.
Since then, we kept regular contact, sending eachother news from where we were, and where we operated from.

After returning from Albania, he continued working in Sarajevo for a few months after which he was appointed to Atambua, West Timor. He was real happy with his international assignment, close to the East Timor border. He regularly crossed the border to be active from the other side, in a small house where he had arranged his shack. He sent me pictures by Email of his shack and antenna.

I looked forward to meet him during my current Asia tour, which included West and East Timor. Unfortunately, I had to reschedule my visit to Kupang and Atambua by a few days at the last moment, so Pero and I missed eachother by 2 days. He was on R&R when I had meetings in his office in Atambua two weeks ago and I walked passed the radio room he worked in. Last week we exchanged Emails again saying 'there will always be a next time, people like us always meet again, one side of the earth or another'.

Unfortunately, Pero, I will not be able to keep my promise. You parted from us way too soon, in a senseless death. We all know the risks we face while working in emergency relief activities, but your departure due to inhumane and totally absurd violence shocked many of us.

Farewell, my friend, we will all miss you. Our thoughts go to your family remaining behind.

vy 73

Peter
ON6TT


Associated Press – Wednesday, September 6th 2000.

DILI, East Timor (Associated Press) –
Thousands of pro-Indonesian militiamen and their supporters stormed a U.N. office in West Timor on Wednesday, killing an American and two other foreign U.N. staffers who worked to help refugees and burning their bodies. A U.N. force flew into the Indonesian territory to evacuate remaining workers, officials said.

Witnesses said Indonesian security forces, long blamed for Timor's continuing tragedy, stood by and did nothing to prevent the killings and the torching of a U.N. office in the West Timor town of Atambua. In addition to the three dead, several foreign staffers for the U.N. refugee agency escaped and three were injured, one of them seriously, police in Atambua said.
The seriously injured staffer was a Brazilian woman who was hacked by an ax-wielding attacker, officials said. The three dead workers were identified as Samson Aregahegn of Ethiopia, Carlos Caseras of the United States and Pero Simundza of Croatia.

West Timor is controlled by Indonesia, while East Timor voted last year to separate from Indonesia and is now administered by the United Nations. Pro-Indonesian militiamen in the region rampaged after the East Timor independence vote, and clashes between pro-Indonesian groups and U.N. peacekeepers have become more frequent of late.

``These were peaceful, unarmed humanitarians who gave their lives trying help those who had lost everything in conflict,'' U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Sadako Ogata said in a statement issued in Geneva. ``Words cannot express the sorrow all of us at UNHCR are feeling today, and our hearts go out to the families of the victims.''
(…)
Wednesday's violence began when thousands of armed pro-Indonesian militia members and their supporters stormed UNHCR's Atambua office. Witnesses said militiamen beat the three foreign U.N. workers to death and burned their bodies in the street. They were the first civilian U.N. staff members to be killed in Timor.
``The militiamen beat them to death inside the building. They then dragged the bodies outside, put on them a pile of wood, poured gasoline over them and set them on fire,'' said one witness, who was too frightened to give his name. ``It was scary.''
(…)
Before Wednesday's attack, the United Nations had recorded 193 deaths of civilian workers since 1992, when the organization began keeping civilian statistics. Since 1948, the United Nations has lost 1,412 military peacekeepers, although the figure jumps to 1,654 when U.N. observers and police are included.
Copyright 2000 The Associated Press

Continue reading The Road to the Horizon's Ebook, jump to the Reader's Digest of The Road.

Read the full post...

Goma, the Scent of Africa

January 1995: "Wanna go!"

When I am home for more than four months, it starts to itch again: "Wanna go, wanna go, wanna go." So beginning of January, I scouted for a new mission as a telecom consultant. Two weeks later, I had a contract with UNHCR, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, to take over the duties of my friend Paul in Goma, North-Eastern Zaire, now DRC, the Democratic Republic of Congo. Lana, our first daughter was just a few weeks old. I wanted to spend some more time at home, but as it always goes when you work as a consultant: you wait for months for a job. Once it comes up, and all the paperwork is done, they require you to leave as soon as possible.

Then all of a sudden you find yourself in the car, driving to the airport, and it hits you (well it surely always hits me!): the feeling of "Gee, what did I let myself into again this time? Why am I doing this? Leaving a warm and comfortable home, my wife and a new born baby girl for the unknown, for several months. Onwards to an uncertain period in the middle of nowhere between a few million refugees". But then, as the plane takes off, it is as if I leave all my doubts behind and then I know one thing for sure: "I do it because I am too crazy for a normal desk job."

February 1995: "750,000 refugees and a lovely evening"

I feel caught between 750,000 refugees, mountain gorillas and two active volcanoes.

It is a breathtaking evening in Hotel Karibu, Goma Zaire. The door of my ground floor hotel room is open and gives me a glorious view over a garden with tropical flowers and trees. It rained a bit this afternoon, and with the evening sun playing over the waves of Lake Kivu, just a breath away, the scent of Africa rolls into the room. The scent of the tropical flowers, of the volcanic ground, of the trees. Birds of all kind sing in the trees.
This is Africa. Mmmm it is good to be back! I have been here three weeks now, and it already feels like home to me.

I'm working here as the telecom officer for UNHCR in the province of North Kivu, supervising 9 operators and two technicians. Together, we run the core of the communications network for this relief operation, the outfall of the Rwanda genocide. It is probably the largest relief radio network in the world at this moment. About 750 users communicate with each other, using a set of 9 repeaters covering the refugee camps with romantic names as Kibumba, Katale, Mugunga and Kayindo. Romantic only by name. Not so in reality.
More than 750,000 people live in 4 major camps. Men, women, and children, families often separated during the Rwanda genocide, or during their long journey across the border with Zaire. Providing daily food, water, shelter, sanitation and health care for 750,000 refugees makes it a huge relief operation. Though the emergency nature of the setup is over, still a lot of people put in 18 hours per day, six to seven days per week.


Sunset over the shores of Lake Kivu
Slowly the sun goes down and the day time noises are fading out. The crickets start their monotonous chirping, and the song of the fishermen on the lake echoes onto the shore. From time to time, you can hear a distant ‘bang’. You never know if this is a sound from rioting in town, an attack in the refugee camp or the fishermen on the lake. They found an efficient way of fishing: they throw in grenades and pick up the dead fish. Too bad this also kills everything alive in the water, leaving the waters of Lake Kivu void of any living thing after a couple of years. But often in Africa, people don’t think about tomorrow.

This afternoon, we drove to the northern camp, inspecting the site where the solar panels of one of our repeaters were stolen some time ago. This is a real beautiful country, on the border between Rwanda and Zaire. With the volcanoes rolling in and out of each other,
providing a rich fertile soil on which everything grows as if it were a gift of god. Tropical trees, and flowers of all smells and colours, banana-trees and coffee fields, one after the other. The fruits and vegetables are the best I have ever tasted: Avocado, mango, Japanese prunes, avocado, wild strawberries, passion fruit, pine apple...

This is the country of the movie 'Gorillas in the mist', with both the mountain gorilla wild reserve and the Virunga National park, one of the world's most beautiful wildlife sites. It is also the spot of two active volcanoes. One erupted in 1977, spitting out lava, which rolled down the slopes at a speed of 40 mph, burning everything on its way, killing close to 1000 people and destroying part of the town of Goma. The other volcano is in eruption now. Though not an immediate threat, the fumes above its crater and the red glow it radiates in the night leave little doubt: the deadly forces are building up.
UNHCR volcanologist are constantly monitoring its activity, making up an emergency plan on how to evacuate the hundreds of thousands of refugees in the volcanoes immediate vicinity. The odour of the sulphur, mixed with the scent of the frangipani bushes in the garden of the hotel mingle into a perfume which I have never smelled before, and am pretty sure I will never smell again.


Dario, and 1,000,000 condoms
One of the volcanologists working with us, is Dario. A nervous short fellow from Southern Italy. He speaks funny Italian-like English, at a speed that makes it absolutely impossible to understand him. This annoys him. The more he gets annoyed, the faster the words pour out of his mouth, and the more vivid the gestures that go with it. His written reports seem to be made in the same language.

It is his first mission in this line of business, and he makes it his full time job –and our full time worry- to always get into trouble. The first night he arrived, he drove –ignoring our explicit warnings-, through town in the middle of the night, and got held up at gunpoint by a gang of drunk militia. Well, military, policemen, rebels, we never know. They all look and act alike. They asked for his wallet, and the keys to the car, and he refused. Luckily, by accident, he was sitting on the microphone of his radio, pushing it into transmission. So over the radio, we overheard –albeit slightly muffled- the whole heated discussion he started in Italenglish with the drunk gang, cursing in pure Sicilian.

Unfortunately for him, the robbers were not impressed, and left him behind on the side of the road. They drove off with his car, wallet and all of his luggage – he was moving from one hotel to another as he had not liked the food in the one we had booked him in. So he got stuck without money, passport or underwear for the rest of his stay.

He won’t not stay very long, though. Dario met Esmeralda, an even shorter Philipino girl. She is our ‘reproductive health’ specialist. Her main task is to buy condoms, by the millions, and to distribute them amongst the refugees in the camps. They fell in love, and some weeks ago, Esmeralda got pregnant. Guess Dario was even too much for a couple of millions condoms.. Dario told me yesterday the best thing to do is to quit his job and take her with him back to Sicily. End of mission.

We will sigh of relief when Dario leaves… We have more trouble with him than with the hundreds of thousands of refugees. It seems every day, he comes up with an other horror story. But I have to admit, he is funny.


March 1995: Robbed
It seems as the local militia were robbed of their regular income when Dario leaving -they robbed him several times- and looked for other resources. I was one of them. They broke into my car, and stole a briefcase. A lesson to be learned for the future: leave nothing in the car. Not in Brussels, not in Goma.

The lovelier this countryside is, the more dangerous people make it. The local policemen and Zairean soldiers, who have not been paid for 13 months, are looking for alternative ways to make a living. A malcontent local population sees their country and resources consumed by the refugees. On top of that, the security situation in the camps is considered as 'fragile', as the exiled Rwanda military and militia are rumoured to prepare an invasion into their country again...

April 1995: Bribes at Goma airport
My mission has ended. Alex, another fellow radio amateur will take over my job. His job, in Kigali-Rwanda is taken over by another good friend of mine, Mark. It is a small world. Alain, my boss, came to Goma for the hand-over. As we can’t find a room for him in Goma, he ends up in my room. As we crawl into the double bed at night, in the dark (the electricity is always cut at night), I tell him: ‘you know, this is probably the only job in the world which requires me to sleep with my boss on the first day we meet’. He does not think it was funny.

Goma gives me a goodbye to remember. Goma airport is a mess. Just a few days ago, one of the local commercial cargo planes from ‘Air Zaire’, which we nicknamed ‘Air Peut-Etre’ – ‘Air Maybe’, referring to their frequent breakdowns and regular crashes, had the wooden stubs, blocking its wheels, stolen during the night. A strong wind got the plane moving. The slight slope in the tarmac guided the plane crashing into two others. They are fixing them now.. I am sure they will flying again tomorrow.

We are flying out with a small twin engine plane. We are standing next to it for a few hours, waiting for – I don’t know what. As I watch the car of the UNHCR security officer drive up the airport, I know there is trouble. The guy shakes his head as he tells us the story. The police just arrested one of the passengers of our plane, accusing him of 'trespassing’ as he was going from the checkin area to immigration.

‘Trespassing’.. And this on, what must be the only international airport in the world where children play football on the runway, giving a time-out when a Boeing approaches to land. There is a busy road on one side of the runway, and a village on the other side, so the people often cross the runway to go from one side to the other.
A few months ago, a twin engine plane caught, in the midst of its take-off, a man who had tried to cross the runway right in front of the plane. The pilot had refused to land, in fear of a lynch party revenging the death of the unfortunate jaywalker, and continued to fly to Entebbe near Kampala – Uganda. They found an arm still stuck in the landing gear after landing in Entebbe. As the story goes, the pilot was arrested, accused for smuggling body parts.

After two hours of discussion, we give up and leave our unfortunate passenger behind. The authorities insist he pays US$1,000 for illegal trespassing, and out of principle, the guy refuses to pay what was clearly a bribe.

As we take off and gain height, I look over the town, the lake –showing bright green yellow colours because of it sulphuric underground, and the fuming volcanoes surrounding it. Behind the volcanoes, the valleys are filled with thousands and thousands of blue and white tiny white dots: the refugee camps. Small huts with UNHCR tarpaulins as a roof, for as far as the eye can see.

I think how fortunate I am to have the choices. My choice was to leave at the end of my mission in Goma. I can leave, I can get on a plane, and within a few hours I will be in a comfortable air-conditioned hotel in Nairobi. Tomorrow I will be home, half a world away. But below me, close to 2 million people can not. They do not have a choice. They have to stay there. Who knows for how long? Two months, two years, twenty years? Was it Nietzsche who said ‘Choices are a curse for men’. I think they are a blessing. I feel blessed at that moment. I vow never to forget again how blessed I am.

Postscriptum:

No, the refugees were not to stay there for 20 years. Not even two years.. Eighteen months later, all of the camps were emptied. Two million people were pushed back into Burundi and Rwanda or driven into the bush like cattle as the troops of the Congolese rebel –later to be president- Kabila moved North and East. Those that did not move fast enough were slaughtered. Thousands and thousands died of starvation, exhaustion, diseases in the jungle. Some of them walked for thousands of miles crossing the entire Congolese jungle from Goma, Bukavu, Uvira to Mbandaka or even Kinshasa. That is the entire Congo from East to West. On foot. Women, children, elderly people. No clothes, no food, no nothing. Humanitarian agencies were scrambling to set up half-way refugee camps along the escape routes trying to shelter those on the move. One thing remained the same, though: They Had No Choice.

Virunga Mountains picture, courtesy of Raffaele Ciriello

Continue reading The Road to the Horizon's Ebook, jump to the Reader's Digest of The Road.

Read the full post...